DriveClub will ‘live or die on the community’ says developer

DriveClub is set to land later this year, and the game’s assistant director has stated that the title will ‘live or die’ on the activity of its social community.

The PS4 exclusive racer is to bring new social and connected elements to the racing genre, and without a continued base of active gamers, the DriveClub experience will ultimately unravel.

“It’s important for us to build a community,” Simon Barlow, DriveClub’s Assistant Game Director said speaking with TrustedReviews. “The way the game is structured, the game lives or dies on the community.”

He added: “If nobody plays it regularly it falls apart.”

Highlighting his concerns, Barlow looked to the state of the MMO genre as a warning as to what could potentially happen to DriveClub without some serious longevity and interaction from gamers.

“You look at any MMO, and certainly the older MMOs where the community is dying away a bit and going to the next one, it feels empty,” Barlow said. “The world feels very barren.

“Those games don’t work without a community. While DriveClub provides a lot more single player gaming than your average MMO a lot of those systems rely on that community."

In order to widen the reach of the game, Sony will make DriveClub available through PlayStation Plus as well as a disc-based release.

Discussing this decision Barlow stated: “We had to do everything we could to get it into as many people’s hands as we could.

“Our hope is that the game speaks for itself and that if people play it and enjoy it they will eventually upgrade or buy the Blu-ray and I guess that’s what pays for the continuity of the title.”

A game built around social collaboration, DriveClub will see gamers enjoy an always connected racer about working together with online friends to earn further rewards.

Having originally been planned as a PS4 launch title, DriveClub has faced a number of delays and will now hit the UK on October 10.